OStatic

If you're looking for an easy to use open source project management tool to manage the workflow of your software development team, then take a look at Retrospectiva. It's powerful software on its own that becomes better when you add on modules to make it even more functional and flexible.

Retrospectiva is designed with an eye toward engineering teams that need a tool to carry them through the entire development life cycle. It tracks issues and tickets, manages goals and milestones, and offers code review and revision management features as well. Retrospectiva also includes support for Subversion and Git.

Open source collaboration software vendor MindTouch announced today that its widely-used enterprise collaboration platform is now available in the cloud. This is great news for businesses who want a service comparable to Microsoft SharePoint, but don't want the headaches of proprietary software or the hassles of a lengthy installation process.

If you're a regular reader of OStatic, then you know this move is one of series of releases MindTouch has launched to drive the future of collaborative networks. Following the creation of the MindTouch Creative Knowledge Base and the MindTouch Collaborative Intranet, a move to the cloud was the next logical step.

As local and state operational budgets dwindle, many government agencies are turning to open source software to help manage workflow both internally and with other departments. As part of a Collaboration Initiative, The New York State Department of Labor launched LaborForge, a public repository designed specifically for sharing labor-related source code and design documents.

That might not sound like a particularly big deal at first, but when you consider many of the projects in the repository concern systems that affect things like call center operations and unemployment benefits, suddenly LaborForge looks like an idea that ought to be expanded to all 50 states.

What's not to like about Google Apps? It has a ton of features, it's incredibly easy to collaborate with other people, and it's free. Well, how about the fact that your data is only as accessible as Google decides to make it? If you're looking for the usefulness of a Web-based collection of office apps but want complete control over your data, OpenGoo might be just the answer you're looking for.

Enterprise collaboration software vendor MindTouch continues its march to take over corporate intranets with this week's release of MindTouch 2009. In addition to assorted improvements and upgrades, the new version also adds three useful features that offer an extra layer of functionality to MindTouch-powered sites.

The inclusion of collaborative video capabilities lets project team members publish video right to MindTouch sites where multiple users can collaborate on and edit them. The new content staging and application packaging features make it easy to collaborate on mashups and application development, then compress the files for distribution to other MindTouch deployments.

In a guest post earlier this month, Aaron Fulkerson, co-founder and CEO of MindTouch, outlined why he believes that businesses do themselves a disservice by relying on existing social networking tools to boost productivity among employees and foster communication with customers. In reality, it only allows for one-dimensional superficial dialogue that serves very little purpose in the long run, and does nothing for overall workflow.

These days it's common for each team within a company to have its own blog, collaborate on inter-departmental projects via wiki, and plan meetings over email. In the meantime, files, databases, ERP, CRM, and other data are typically spread out all over the place. Companies communicate with customers through social networks, while employees communicate with each other via group chat. Each method works well on its own but [s]ocial software is not solving business problems, writes Fulkerson. In fact, these applications only serve to treat symptoms of the problems businesses face.

Maybe it's not a completely counterintuitive concept that giving away a service can yield new business relationships and profits, but undoubtedly, actually doing so is still a leap of faith. It was a chance that Open-Xchange felt was worth taking when it announced it would be giving away its webmail module to qualifying telecom, non-profit, and educational organizations. Almost three months later, Open-Xchange is seeing that giving a little bit can bring good returns.

Open-Xchange's ongoing Webmail4Free promotion offers a free (in speech and cost) webmail module in exchange for marketing the company's open source groupware and mobility modules to the qualifying organization's users and signing a support agreement. The agreement terms vary depending on the organization's size and scope.

It's working out for Open-Xchange, which is reporting a rosier Q1 than expected, and has seen a number of new partnerships and customers thanks to the promotion.

For the past few weeks, off and on, I've heard some low-level, excited buzzing about iFolder. What is it? Think of it as an open source Dropbox service that lives on your servers under your jurisdiction, with a few added perks.

iFolder isn't new, per se, but it hasn't seen an updated source code release since 2007. Late last week, Novell, which sponsors the iFolder project, announced that iFolder 3.7.2 client and server packages -- as well as source code -- were available for download. The new release runs on Mac, Windows (including Vista) and Linux 32- and 64- bit environments. The push is now on to keep iFolder a very community-driven initiative.

Last month, I covered some of the reasons why companies contribute less often to open source projects, and some possible reasons why. It's an intriguing topic not only because it highlights how groups approach projects differently than individuals, but because it is so pertinent to the growth of open source software. As more household name companies begin using and developing products that utilize open source software, a new demographic will get the opportunity to experience (and hopefully, embrace) the new products and their different, open, approach.

The GNOME Foundation's Executive Director, Stormy Peters, offers advice to companies interested in actively collaborating in the open source world. Her post outlines the basics of her talk at OSiM USA.

The Linux Foundation and Sourceforge have joined forces to rebuild a community on the prime web real estate known as Linux.com.

In its former life, Linux.com featured a mix of unique content and aggregated stories from the wider Linux community. While it hosted forums and allowed reader comments, it wasn't fully collaborative. Late last year, Linux.com ceased updating the aggregated stories, and at the start of 2009, announced that the original content was also coming to an end, but that other (bigger) plans were afoot. The old Linux.com forum software then replaced the articles on the main page, and many were left puzzled about where on earth this rather memorable domain was headed.

The Linux Foundation and Sourceforge have put the transformation in motion -- but where the domain is headed is very much up to the Linux community. Linux developers and users alike are invited to give their thoughts on the IdeaForge on Linux.com.